Abstract: Based on software ABAQUS, a thermal-elastic-plastic finite element computational method was developed to simulate welding temperature field, distribution of residual stress and deformation of 10 mm thick SUS304 austenitic stainless steel plate joints with V-, K-, and X-type grooves. The simulated welding residual stress and angular distortion in the butt weld agreed well with the experimentally measured results, which verified the accuracy of the proposed computational procedure. The results show that the groove shape had prominent influence on the distribution of residual stress and angular distortion. The zone with high tensile longitudinal residual stress and angular distortion were significantly larger with V-groove than with K-groove and X-groove, and those with K-groove were slightly larger than with X-groove. However, the type of groove had little influence on the peak value of longitudinal residual stress.